I am the founder of Cunniff Consulting, a strategic B2B brand marketing consultancy focused on technology and supply chain.

Why those subjects? Because they’re at the epicenter of epic challenges and opportunities transforming business and society. It’s the most exciting aspect of business today.

The challenge for marketing, of course, is that business now evolves so rapidly that it’s tough to keep pace. Value propositions get badly out of date; brand architecture and product and portfolio organizations routinely need to be entirely revisited.

What’s more, competitive frames can shift radically. In 1995, who would have believed that Apple and something named Google would be a factor in the car business?

Our job is to help our clients navigate through the chaos and find success.

We’ve served clients including Acxiom, AffinityX, Merchantry, Rocket Fuel, Teads, and more. We help them package their stories — to investors, buyers, partners, employees, and every other stakeholder who matters — so they are clear and compelling.

Writing and Speaking

“I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.”
~ Flannery O’Connor

I speak regularly at industry events like Ad Age Digital, Digiday, Ad-Tech, Brand Innovators Summits, and The Cynopsis Digital Business Summit. The more I write and talk, the more I’m forced to really understand what I mean. Writing forces me to challenge my assumptions in a way that nothing else can.

A History Of Absurdly Good Luck

I started my advertising career at just 17 years old. My mother took me downtown from the Bronx to get my working papers, because I was a minor.

Starting in advertising was an unbelievable stroke of luck. It was my business school; it’s where I learned how to think strategically, and how to write clearly and memorably. More good luck: I wrote for the J. Peterman catalog for a decade. It was the best imaginable training for a storyteller.

I went on to found an early digital agency with Unilever as my first client. Brandscape was later acquired by Fry, which itself was acquired by Micros, and then Oracle. To round out my education, I left to run global digital marketing for 10 years at Combe, and had the opportunity to serve as Chairman of the Digital Marketing Committee at the Association of National Advertisers.

In 2012, I got the entrepreneurial itch again and founded Cunniff Consulting.

I live and work in Manhattan. If you see me at a conference, or in my Union Square neighborhood, please say hi. The best part of my job is meeting new people.